National Clinical Audits

National Audit of Dementia (care in general
hospitals). Admission to a general hospital can be a
difficult and distressing event for people with dementia and is
often associated with a worsening in their condition. This audit
will help to identify structures, clinical practice and standards
affecting people with dementia in general hospitals across England
and Wales and to look into priority areas for improvement of
services for people with dementia.

National Audit of
Schizophrenia (NAS) will enable clinicians who
treat people with schizophrenia in the community to assess the
quality of their prescribing of antipsychotic drugs and of their
monitoring of patients’ physical health. It will also support
them to monitor patients’ experience of treatment and its
outcome. Through the audit, local services will be able to
compare their performance with national standards and to benchmark
with other services, identifying what they do well and where there
is potential to improve. Wide participation in the audit will
also create an overview of the quality of care being provided
nationally.

Prescribing Observatory for Mental Health-UK
(POMH-UK) helps mental health services monitor
and improve prescribing
practice. The project provides a range of services
to members (Trusts and private healthcare organisations). The
core are fully supported programmes of clinical audit,
individualised benchmarking reports and a range of change
interventions to help improve practice.

The Early Intervention
Psychosis audit aims to support the introduction of
the new access and waiting time standards set for EIP services to
ensure timely access to NICE concordant care for young people and
adults experiencing a first episode of psychosis. The audit will
establish a baseline position regarding the ability of services to
provide timely access to the full range of interventions
recommended by NICE (delivered by fully trained and supervised
practitioners) in line with local demand.